


Bare to the Bone

by slash4femme



Category: Bleach
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2018-10-28 00:30:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10819953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: Byakuya finds Shunsui by the lake





	Bare to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, sorry guys. written for springkink prompt: Bleach, Shunsui/Byakuya: Comfort - those that meant the most to them were gone.

I.  
  
Kuchiki Byakuya has not slept a whole night through in close to a decade. In fact he has always been prone to insomnia and night terrors even as a small child and it was only during a very small portion of his life, while he was married, that he’d been successfully able to sleep most of a night through without waking.  
  
Therefore the long hours of wakefulness, along with the dull throbbing headaches that plague him the next morning are nothing new, nothing he does not know how to deal with. Most nights he reads or catches up on his paperwork. Some nights he practices in the courtyard of the Kuchiki estates, especially if there is a full moon.  
  
That night though he did not feel like reading, or training. There is a restlessness that had settled inside of him so instead Byakuya walks through the gardens and when that becomes tedious he goes to the roof. The moon is not quite full but especially bright, and the wind is cool against his face. Byakuya is wearing his hair down, a simple, lightweight kimono and bare feet, as he does at night. He enjoys looking at the stars and out over the Sereitei. That’s when he sees the figure in the distance, sitting by the lake, and there is no reason why Byakuya should go there. He does not particularly wish to speak with anyone and if the figure had been even slightly threatening the night watch would have taken care of it. Nevertheless though, he goes.  
  
Shunsui is sitting on the shore, watching the water, drinking. Byakuya notices almost immediately that everything about him feels subdued. This is unusual because Shunsui does not believe in hiding any part of who he is, and his presences usually moves in front of him like a wave of sweet summer air, but not tonight. Byakuya stills, a little from him, watches him lift the cup to his lips. Shunsui seems calm, in any other situation, Byakuya would have called it serine.  
  
“Would you like to join me?” Shunsui lowers the cup and turns to look at where Byakuya stands still obscured in shadow. Byakuya steps forward into the moonlight.  
  
“It’s late,” He says rather unnecessarily, “You should go home.”  
  
Shunsui’s smile is almost gentle, “I’m afraid that is impossible.” He takes another sip of sake the smile still clinging to his lips. Byakuya wants to look away, he folds his hands in front of him again. Feels a pain start, like an old bruise underneath his ribcage.  
  
“Captain Kyoraku-”  
  
Shunsui sighs and sets down his cup. “Byakuya-kun if you don’t want to join me perhaps you should consider going to bed yourself.” His tone is gentle and the small smile from earlier still lingers, but Byakuya knows he’s being dismissed. He considers argue, but there would be no point in that so instead he turns and makes his way back towards his family estate, leaving Shunsui by the lake.  
  
  
  
II.  
  
He courted her in late summer, when the days where long and warm, and the sky was clear, and he’d married her in late summer too. He’d wanted to do it right, wanted to do everything in the traditional proper way. Many of his family assumed, because she was so much lower in class than him, that it would be a rushed affair. All sex and scandal and moments of defiance. His one great rebellion. In his mind it was never like that though, he’d always thought of her as a lady, from the moment he’d seen her, so thin and pale, in a kimono that didn’t quiet fit her, mending on her lap. He’d treated her like a lady, the same as he would if she had been from a noble family. That much she deserved from him. He’d been gentle and chaste with her, tried to be loyal and good. Tried to be a good husband, a good lover, because she deserved it but also because it made him happy to do so. She’d been so gentle, and elegant. She also had a wild streak though that sometimes had her chasing him around the garden as if they were both children, just so she could push him up against a cherry tree and kiss the laughter off his lips.

He’d been gentle and chaste with her, tried to be loyal and good. Tried to be a good husband, a good lover, because she deserved it but also because it made him happy to do so. She’d been so gentle, and elegant. She also had a wild streak though that sometimes had her chasing him around the garden as if they were both children, just so she could push him up against a cherry tree and kiss the laughter off his lips.  
  
Byakuya sighs and straightens a brush on his desk, the end of summer is always the hardest time of year for him. Even going out into the garden during this time is a bittersweet torture. Byakuya is beginning to think that he might be something of a masochist that he does it at all.  
  
Shunsui is up on the roof of the eighth division that night. Again Byakuya is not sure why he is there, there is no reason for him to be, but he sits down anyway.

Shunsui’s hands are shaking, Byakuya can see where the other man has them clasped in his lap. Byakuya does not ask if he is all right because that would be demeaning to them both. Instead he turns away and looks out over the Seritai, watches the moon rise.  
  
“Don't you ever sleep?” Shunsui asks when Byakuya sits beside him on the roof, and Byakuya looks up at the sky.  
  
“Most of the time, no.”  
  
They sit in silence for a long time and Byakuya is aware of Shunsui beside him. How the other man clenches and unclenches his fists over and over again as if this might stop his hands from trembling. It makes him feel disquieted inside as if he should do something, say something, to makes Shunsui realize the uselessness of his actions, to makes him stop.  
  
“Stop.” Byakuya hasn’t realized he’s said it until the sound of his voice rings between them interrupting the silence. Byakuya stands quickly, smooths down his kimono. “It is pointless.” Byakuya turns away, heads back the ways he has come. He feel Shunsui gaze on him as he leaves, doesn’t have to turn to see that Shunsui’s eyes are wide and a little shocked. Byakuya clenches his own hands into fists that do not loosen until he is safely back behind his own bedroom door.  
  
  
  
III.  
  
It hurts, it hurts until he can’t stand it until he can’t sit still and goes pacing around the garden again. The night seems so heavy it lies on him like it might at any moment wrap fingers around his throat until he has no more air left to breathe. He has very little of that anyway.  
  
Renji always knew his captain didn’t sleep. Sometimes he’d come and sit with him. It was a huge act of trust, to have his lieutenant there in his house, in his rooms, like that. Renji though never seemed to take that for granted. After the hard days, Renji would fall asleep sometimes curled up on the floor, and Byakuya knew he should reprimand him, but he never did, usually, he just turned the light down.  
  
He thinks Renji was at his most beautiful like that, quiet and still, eyes half-lidded with sleep he won’t allow himself, sitting on the other side of Byakuya’s desk. Byakuya would watch him when Renji finally did sleep sometimes. Watch how the skin of Renji’s eyelids and throat would seem almost fragile then, would wonder what it might be like to reach out and touch him.  
  
He paces his garden, going over the paths over and over again, winding between the trees so many times he could walk it blind. He walks until his body feels heavy with the need for sleep, until he feels so physically detached he can barely recognize his hands as his own. Still his mind will not give him peace, and Byakuya continues to move. He becomes aware of Shunsui when the other man drops down beside the path, sits in the grass of Byakuya’s private garden and watches him. Byakuya should tell him to leave, he even stiffens his back, prepares the speech in his mind about propriety and how this is private property. He cannot seem to summon the will or the strength to go through with it though.  
  
About the third or fourth time he passes by the other man Shunsui says his name. “Byakuya”  
  
He does not listen only continues through the trees. When he comes back around through the other man stands swiftly and grabs his arm. “Stop.” Shunsui tells him quietly, “That’s enough.”  
  
Byakuya very much doubts it ever will be.  
  
  
IV.  
  
There is a storm coming, very literally. The sky is not as dark as it should be given the hour. Instead, the sky is a sickly gray color as if lit from behind and the clouds seem to boil. The wind picks up blowing things across courtyards, rattling tree branches and churning up the water of the lake. Byakuya would expect even Shunsui to be indoors in such weather.  
  
Yet Shunsui stands on a small hill overlooking the lake. He is not dressed in as he usually is. His hat is gone, along with the pink haori, even his Captain’s haori. He is in plain black, hair tied back from his face. He looks, Byakuya thinks, almost severe, and incredibly striking. He’s not at all sure about the emotion the pools within his chest.  
  
“It reminds me of him.” Shunsui says when Byakuya comes to stand beside him, “but then storms always do.” The wind picks up whips the grass out in huge fans, rippling away from them. The water in the late rolls, waves cresting higher and higher, and it begin to rain, sheets of water. The lighting lights the sky into an eerie white-blue. “I loved him best this way.” Shunsui’s voice is so soft Byakuya almost doesn’t hear him over the roll of thunder, screech of the wind. “Like a storm, wild, untouchable, untamable, unstoppable, so much energy, so much power, so much _life_.”  
  
Byakuya looks up at the sky, watches the lightning strike and arch across the distant mountains, watches the water churn, the wind tares at them, the rain buffeting them from all sides. Byakuya thinks of his Captain, always calm, always in control, always with a smile or a kind word even if he could be strict and demanding at times. He tries to imagine Ukitake Juushirou likes this, this raw, unbridled, destructive force that rages around them, and fails.  
  
He looks over at Shunsui, his hair is slicked to his face, his clothes cling to him, drenched as they are with rain, the wind pushes against him and Shunsui wraps his arms around himself. They are both running with water at this point so Byakuya will never be sure but he thinks Shunsui may weep standing out there in the middle of a thunderstorm. Neither of them gets any sleep until it’s over.  
  
  
V.  
  
His grief is not all encompassing because it cannot be. His position, his duty does not allow for that, it never did. He does not drink either, again that is a luxury he cannot afford, has never been able to.  
  
Byakuya takes a sip of sake watches Shunsui. He sees how the moonlight plays across Shunsui's hair, how he holds his cup between his fingers but does not drink. The nights are getting cooler, summer will end soon. Soon Byakuya will not come to this garden outside his private rooms, but at least tonight it is still warm enough to let things grow.  
  
“I used to drink for the discipline of it.” Shunsui turns his cup between his fingers, “and the joy. Walking that fine line between control and the loss of it, the razor's edge. Or just because it made him fuss.” He smiles a little and takes a sip, the first of the night although they have both been here for a long time, sitting in the dark together.  
  
“but then we always talk about me.” Shunsui lips quirk up ironically because the truth is they hardly talk at all, “I thought we could talk about you tonight.”  
  
Byakuya looks at his hands for some reason he does not want to meet Shunsui's eyes. “There is nothing to tell.” For lack of anything better to do, he takes another sip of sake.  
  
“I’m sure that’s not true.”  
  
Byakuya looks up and finds that he hates the fact that Shunsui’s eyes are so gentle and that his mouth curves up in a small smile. It seems so wrong, it seems like a lie. Byakuya cannot stand being lied to. He reaches out even though he is not sure why, cups Shunsui’s face lightly for a moment and Shunsui hand comes up, their fingers catching. Somewhere, someone moves, Shunsui’s mouth is hot, and heavy, pressing against his and he tastes sake, and cinnamon and something else Byakuya can’t name. The kiss is shallow, but it is followed by another equally fleeting and another. Shunsui’s hands are light against the sides of Byakuya’s face, and he clutches at Shunsui’s haori. After a few moments Byakuya manages to stand and he expects, almost wants, Shunsui to turn away from him, to walk in the opposite direction but Shunsui does not. He does not turn away then, nor when Byakuya takes him by the end and leads him into his rooms. They kiss again as Byakuya lights a lamp, this time open mouthed and with intent. They kiss once more when Shunsui sits on the futon, pulling him down, half on his lap, and he trails his tongue lightly across Byakuya’s lips and Byakuya allows his lips to part. Shunsui’s kiss is slow and undemanding as he maps out the inside of Byakuya’s mouth and finally it is Byakuya who becomes impatient allows his own tongue to surge into Shunsui’s mouth.  
  
Byakuya is only wearing a light kimono as he always is during their late night meetings, but Shunsui is wearing layers and layers of clothing. He discards the top couple layers, until he is only dressed in simple black again. Byakuya’s eyes rakes across Shunsui’s form, the strength in his arms and shoulders, his broad chest with dark hair across it, the dark curls falling against his face. Byakuya would be lying if he said he does not find these things physically appealing.  
  
Shunsui has that gentleness in his eyes again though, that makes him look almost sweet as he lays himself back on the bed, black cloth falling off his shoulder, pooling around his elbows, legs a little spread.  
  
“No.” _no, no, just no_ Byakuya closes his eyes and takes a long shaking breath, and Shunsui sits up questioningly.  
  
“What-”  
  
Byakuya’s hands go to his own obi and he pulls let’s the fine white cloth of his kimono rolls off his shoulders to pool on the futon. He knows Shunsui probably want to do this facing each other but there is nothing Byakuya can imagine seeing in the other man’s eyes that he wants to see there. So he turns around until he is kneeling on the bed.  
  
“We are doing it this way.” He says, using a stern tone he hopes Shunsui won’t arguing with, and there is a long moment of silence and then Shunsui’s hands run almost tentatively along the curve of Byakuya’s back. Byakuya closes his eyes and lets himself feel Shunsui’s big hands the way they stroke from the nape of his neck down to his ass and the back up over and over again until Byakuya begins to think he is going to have to tell the other man to just get on with it. Finally he feels one of Shunsui’s fingers press between his cheeks, there, and just the touch is enough to make him bite his lip to keep from gasping.  
  
“Do you have anything to make this easier?” Shunsui asks hands rubbing soothing circles on the smaller of Byakuya’s back.  
  
“The jar on the table next to the bed has oil in it.” Byakuya tells him and wishes Shunsui would just stop being so gentle. Shunsui’s hands leave his back and then after a moment he feels something trickle wet and slick against his ass and closes his eyes and breaths. Shunsui’s fingers circle his hole until Byakuya has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at him to just do it, to just stop, _stop please, just stop_.  
  
Shunsui’s finger push into him, one in and out, and then two and Byakuya squeezes his eyes closed, presses his cheek against the blankets in relief. Two fingers press and slide inside of him, and then become three, and then four. Byakuya can’t stop himself from crying out this time, can’t stop his hips from rocking back, his thighs from spreading wider, and Shunsui leans forward and croons in his ear, kisses his cheek. Then Shunsui’s fingers are gone and the other man’s length is pressing against him, pressing into him, and Byakuya stops trying to support himself with is arms, only collapse onto the mattress. Shunsui thrust into him, rubs his back and whispers soothing nonsense. Byakuya makes small unarticulated noises at the feeling of being stretched, of being, so full. He takes air in through little gasping breaths, let’s the burn bleed into pleasure. Shunsui fucks him hard, sweetly and good and Byakuya hates every moment of it.  
  
  
  
VI.  
  
“What are you looking for?”  
  
Shunsui is watching him rummage around the room he uses as an office when at home, like he might have just gone a little bit crazy. It is the first day that Byakuya will once more have a lieutenant having refused for so long to pick one himself, he is now having one forced upon him. She is a good soldier an excellent officer and Byakuya has no doubt that she will do her job well and carry her responsibilities with dignity.  
  
He pulls open another cabinet and goes through it. It is very unlike him to loose things this way, most of the time he is extremely well organized and knows at a moment’s glance where all his paperwork is. He picks up another stack of papers and rifles through it before looking up at Shunsui. The other man is dressed in a dark blue kimono with a pattern of different colored flowers, and his hair is down. It occurs to Byakuya that this maybe the first time he has ever seen the older man when he is neither in uniform nor naked.  
  
“I can not fine the reports that were sent to me from squad ten.”  
  
Shunsui moves across the room, searches around the desk for a moment before handing a neat stack of papers to Byakuya.  
  
“Calm down.” Shunsui’s arms wrap around him from behind, Shunsui’s breath hot against his neck. The older man kisses his ear, nuzzling at the soft skin behind it and Byakuya shivers. The action is too intimate, too much, an expression of affection shared between lover.

They are not lover.  
  
Byakuya pulls himself away, papers in hand, and heads for the door.  
  
  
  
VII.  
  
“I’m not him.” Shunsui, who had been attempting to kiss Byakuya, takes several steps backwards and Byakuya schools his face to blankness.  
  
Shunsui swallows hard, his hands falling to his sides, fingers curled inwards, “You think-” Shunsui seems to flounder for a moment as if he’s having a hard time getting enough breath, “You think I don’t know that?” his hands are suddenly fists at his sides, “you are nothing like him, Byakuya.”  
  
Byakuya is actually surprised by how much that hurts. After all it is only a simple statement of fact, it should not feel . . . like a loss, like somehow a failure.  
  
Shunsui takes several more steps backward, his head is lowered, his eyes unreadable. “I could never . . . would never . . .”  
  
Byakuya recognizes the emotion finally that makes the other man’s voice sound tight, that makes it shake a little around the edge of every word. Shunsui is angry, really, truly angry, and now Byakuya realizes that Shunsui’s slow and steady retreat away from him is not out of hurt or shock but out of some sort of care.  
  
Shunsui does not trust himself anymore, he is too close to breaking. Then suddenly he sighs, and rubs one hand across his eyes. “This is my fault.” His voice is too quiet, and he still refuses to meet Byakuya’s eyes. Then suddenly Shunsui is turning, a short couple strides and he is gone. Byakuya does not call out, does not try and stop him, does not know what he would say if he did.  
  
Failure. It is the height of ironic that in the end it is Byakuya who fails. Fails at everything, at being a son, a husband, at being a Captain, at being a lover. Incapable of truly giving love to anyone no matter how much he might . . .  
  
It was probably for the best that he had only ever loved two people and that only one of them had attempted to build a life with him. For the best because in the end he’s not sure he’s succeed at anything. He thinks maybe Renji would have found that amusing. That thought does not help in the slightest.  
  
  
  
VIII.  
  
He is doing paperwork because sleeping is an impossibility, and because anything else would have allowed his mind to wander. He cannot bear that right now, cannot bear to think, or feel, or anything really.  
  
“You work too much.”  
  
Arms encircle his shoulders and Byakuya wills his back not to stiffen even though the voice and the actions are both completely unexpected. He turn a little in his seat and Shunsui presses their cheeks together and Byakuya goes still, “hasn’t anyone ever told you that’s not healthy for someone as young as you?”  
  
Byakuya doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, almost doesn’t breathe. Shunsui stands, takes him by the hand and pulls him into the other man’s arms. They stand like that for a long time, Shunsui’s arms wrapped around him, Byakuya not responding. Shunsui finally lets him go and takes his hand and leads him to the bed. Byakuya does not object, does not argue only lays himself out, hair loose, kimono half undone. He lets Shunsui kiss his neck, the other man’s fingers petting through his hair, and Byakuya bites his lip and closes his eyes as if in pain.  
  
It takes him a moment when the other man stops moving, to realize that Shunsui is crying. Byakuya’s eyes open and he lies there as Shunsui weeps into the hollow his throat and Byakuya turns his head until his lips press against the roughness of Shunsui’s cheek in a way that is not quite a kiss.  
  
“The pain is never going to lessen.” Shunsui finally says, voice a soft almost lost whisper.  
  
Byakuya closes his eyes again. “No.”  
  
They lie like that in silence for a long time and after a little while Byakuya pulls his hands out from under Shunsui so that his blood can continue to circulate. Because he has nowhere else to put them, he places them around the other man’s waist. Shunsui snuffles against his shoulder, and Byakuya strokes his thumbs in small soothing circles against the older man’s back. After a little while longer Shunsui gives a little sniffling sob and kisses Byakuya under his ear. His lips travel along the younger man’s throat to the soft part where neck meets shoulder. Shunsui kisses him and strokes his hair as if they were lovers and Byakuya lets him.  
  
When he gets up the next morning, pulling his kimono back around him, he almost trips over the layers of Shunsui’s clothes, thrown carelessly on the floor. Byakuya could have stepped over them, could have called for a servant, instead he gathers them up and folds them all neatly, sets them next to the bed.  
  
He opens the screen and steps into the garden. There is a faint frost, tinting the grass white around the edges, he sees there is a fog still hanging over the Sereitei. Today, Byakuya knows, the new Captain of squad thirteen will be appointed.  
  
Behind him Shunsui stirs a little in his sleep, grasping the blankets the pulling them tighter around himself. Byakuya turns and goes back into the house to make the morning tea.


End file.
